Customer Service

'Good evening xyZZZZZ.... can I help yoUUUUUU.'

It's the rising intonation at the end, just like the Australians in Neighbours, that finally gets to me, especially when you've heard it every evening, endlessly, for two weeks. And when it's a fat, middle-aged man who sounds like an excitable teenage woman, totally delighted, speaking in a camp version of a Devon accent, then it's definitely too much. Time to leave. Time to 'move on', in the modern, annoying American, urban vernacular.

I hate 'Customer Service'; absolutely hate it. I hate the whole culture of sounding nice and delighted to people you have never even met before. There are millions of people in Britain who perpetuate this phoney charade, right now as I write. Millions, sitting down, wearing those annoying little black headphones with the spindly microphone covering your mouth, automata speaking to the clouds. It is not natural.

When I worked at Middlemoor, once, the manager took me aside - I'd been there six months on £6.25 an hour, for nights - and told me that I didn't sound suitably delighted and eager on the telephone. There had been complaints. One night, an officer rang up - at 5.00 am, if you please - with five cases ready to be put onto the system, over the phone, a call that would take at least ninety minutes, all flat-out typing, breakneck speed, tired, aching fingers at the end. How can you sound delighted at that?

In his secret little broom cupboard, packed full of recording equipment - like something out of a CIA, Cold War surveillance unit in Berlin - my manager, sat down on his chair, played the tape back at me; okay, he was right, I did sound grumpy and annoyed. I MAKE NO APOLOGIES! I reserve the right to sound tired and grumpy at 5 in the morning, when I've been up all night, working since 10pm the night before. It is not natural; even less so on £6.25 an hour.

I returned to my chair - 'workstation' - and took another call. I considered my position as I spoke to another officer, looked around me, wondered what the hell I was doing up at this unearthly hour. £6.25 an hour? I took another call... then a third and final telephone call. I would speak to my manager, or 'Supervisor' as they prefer.

'J... I just came to say that I am leaving... I've had enough.' He took me into the canteen, tried to persuade me to stay, but I was adamant. That was the end of that. He took my security pass. Goodbye, thankyou very much!

The parcels firm where I work now - I'll call them XYZ, based in Sowton - is disgusting. Like other parcels firms, the place is dirty, cheap, untidy and grotty. The offices are cramped and ad hoc, the furniture twenty years old, about the cheapest you could get. It is even worse than a professional customer services outfit; at least they all have shiney, brand new furniture, offices and carpet. Nice places, on the surface. This place is a dump.

There are old boxes and piles of paper everywhere, shelving askew, a lino floor that's falling apart, a front door that doesn't work properly; it must have been the cheapest premises available, certainly it looks it from the outside. It is shabby, utterly derisory (though not as bad as the other parcels firm I worked at for one week, RSI, based out in Broadclyst, which was a portakabin inside a warehouse).

My current job involves typing... endlessly. Three hours of endless typing - no customer service, thank God - but endless, boring, mundane typing. The input of countless consignment notes, stupid little addresses to be found on the side of the card, a whole process that if the firm had any brains could be automated and computerised.

The final ignominy is the clocking-in process. Okay, this is mainly for the warehouse staff, but it is insulting. It belies a lack of trust; and a con. One minute late starting and you lose fifteen minutes' pay; six minutes late finishing and you receive... nothing. My departure is imminent, perhaps even tonight.

I need to get back into the Technical Writing business, and quick. That means learning new skills and quite some dedication. Do I have it in me?